[Mb-civic] Republican's new man seals corruption...and "Ozone Man"

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

A Boehner in the Henhouse

John Nichols
<http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=56161>
Posted 02/03/2006 @ 2:32pm

Newly-selected House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-
Ohio, is getting some remarkably good press, considering
his remarkably sordid political pedigree.

ABC News referred to the grizzled veteran of Capitol
Hill, who was elected to the House when George Bush the
Dad was president and Democrat Tom Foley was the Speaker
of the House, as a "fresh face." The network's report on
the House Republican Caucus vote to select a replacement
for the indicted Tom DeLay was headlined: "New Leader,
Ohio Rep. John Boehner, Campaigned as a Reformer."

The Los Angeles Times announced, with no apparent sense
of irony, that: "By choosing Boehner to fill DeLay's
shoes in the House, the party hopes to move past
scandals."

Newsday just went for it, declaring above its report on
Boehner's election: "A promise of reform wins vote."

As they say in the newsroom: Don't believe everything
you read in the headlines.

Boehner is an old-fashioned shakedown artist whose
promise of "change" amounts to little more than a pledge
that he won't get caught like DeLay did. The Ohioan may
be smoother than the Texan, but only a fool, or a
Washington pundit looking to cozy up to the new boss,
would mistake a better haircut and the absence of the
stench of bug spray as evidence of ethics.

The best take on Boehner's elevation to the top of the
Congressional food chain comes not from the Washington
press corps but from one of the city's more watchdogs:
Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.

Referring to Boehner victory over the presumed favorite,
Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Missoui, in the House
leadership contest as "a selection of Tweedle Dum over
Tweedle Dee," Claybrook explained that, "The rejection
of Representative Blunt shows that rank-and-file
Republicans are aware the corruption scandal that has
shaken Washington could put their majority status at
risk. But the elevation of Representative Boehner,
himself a product and proponent of the systemic problem
of cronyism and influence-peddling that afflicts our
nation's capital, is not a sign that business as usual
will end."

Claybrook invites Americans to consider these facts
about the man who, because of Speaker Dennis Hastert's
obvious limitations, will now be the most powerful
player in the House of Representatives:

* Boehner recently characterized Hastert's plan to ban
privately funded travel as "childish" and dismissed the
need for a ban on gifts from lobbyists to members of
Congress. "If some members' vote can be bought for a $20
lunch, they don't need to be here," he said. Later,
Boehner backed away from his characterization of the
travel ban as "childish," but not the sentiment
underlying his remark.

* Boehner's political action committee collected nearly
$300,000 from private student lending companies and for-
profit academic institutions from 2003-2004. Boehner has
used his chairmanship of the Education and the Workforce
Committee to promote their pet causes - legislation that
would make it more difficult to cut the fees on
government student loans, which would cut into the
private lenders market share, and legislation that would
provide millions in subsidies to for-profit colleges and
trade schools. (For more details on this, see a report
in the Washington Post of January 28, 2006.)

* Boehner has taken more than $157,000 in free trips,
placing him seventh among 638 current and former members
of Congress, including senators, in the value of
privately funded travel accepted between 2000 and 2005,
according to American Radioworks. These included a
$4,869 trip to Scotland in 2000 and a $9,050 trip to
Rome in 2001, both of which were sponsored by the Ripon
Educational Fund, a nonprofit group largely run by
business lobbyists. Family members traveled with him for
free on both trips.

* An exceptional number - at least 24 - former Boehner
staff members have passed through the revolving door
from government service to find work in the private
sector as lobbyists or corporate public affairs
specialists. (For more details on this, see a report in
The Hill newspaper of February 1, 2006.)

* Boehner preceded indicted former House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay as the head of the "K Street Operation," the
Republicans' efforts to coordinate policy and
fundraising with well-heeled lobbyists, which since has
been dubbed the "K Street Project." But the Ohioan lost
the job to DeLay in 1998 after he was voted out as head
of the Republican Conference. (For more details on this,
see a report in the Baltimore Sun of December 21, 1998.)

* Boehner caught a large amount of flack for handing out
checks to his colleagues from tobacco company PACs on
the floor of Congress in 1995. Although not illegal, it
certainly showed poor judgment but was consistent with
his role at the time as the party's chief liaison with K
Street. (For more details on this, see a report in the
New York Times of May 10, 1996.)

The indictment of Boehner that Claybrook has advanced
explains why principled Republicans in both the
conservative and moderate camps backed a third candidate
for the Majority Leader post, Arizona Representative
John Shadegg, who promised to "clean up" the House.
Shadegg described his race against Boehner and Blunt as
"a choice between real reform and the status quo."

With Boehner's election, the status quo has prevailed.
And as Claybrook notes with her usual bluntness -- and
accuracy -- that is an ugly result not just for House
Republicans but for America.

"Elevating a leader of the current broken system to be
majority leader is an affront to voters and a stain on
the Republican Party," Claybrook argues. "If the past is
any guide, Boehner will now use this key position to
undercut ethics and lobbying reforms in the House of
Representatives."
_______________________________________________________

To subscribe: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside

***

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/opinion/04dowd.html?th&emc=th

Ozone Man
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: February 4, 2006
WASHINGTON

The Saudi ambassador summoned me to the embassy on Thursday, across the
street from the Watergate. He wanted to know if Americans were still
addicted to oil.

I assured him we were.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the charming new envoy from the royal family, was
confused about W.'s suddenly morphing into Ozone Man, as Poppy Bush 
called
Al Gore in '92. At the State of the Union address at the Capitol Tuesday
night, the prince watched with chagrin as the ex-Texas oilman urged
breaking our dependence by replacing most Mideast oil imports with wood
chips and ethanol, a word usually heard only quadrennially when pols
pander during the Iowa caucuses.

The prince, dressed in long white robe and checkered headdress, explained
that last fall, when Condi Rice was in Jidda, the Saudis and the U.S.
launched a "strategic dialogue," which included a promise by the Saudis to
pump more oil. And now the president promises that the U.S. will need less
oil.

Which way are the desert winds blowing?

I told the prince it was politics. W. is just mouthing conservation
arguments to offset Americans' disgust at the obscene profits of Exxon
Mobil and Halliburton, high gas prices and a conflict in Iraq that Rummy
now gallingly dubs "the long war." Shouldn't it be "the wrong war"?
(Halliburton never gets punished for bilking the Pentagon. The Army just
awarded the company a $385 million contract to build detention centers for
the Department of Homeland Security.)

Bush presidents, I told Prince Turki, sometimes say things without
realizing that they are expected to act on their words. I expressed some
doubt that the Duke of Halliburton, who dismissed conservation as a
"personal virtue," would let W. go all "Earth in the Balance." It's not
easy being green with smoggy Dick keeping a gimlet eye on you. The Saudi
ambassador said he liked the vice president.

After some Turkish coffee, some reminiscences about the time the religious
police in Saudi Arabia almost threw me in a dungeon, some chat about Iraq
— there are two possible outcomes, one good, one awful — and some mutual
puzzlement over the administration's lack of zeal in going after Osama bin
Laden, we parted.

I needed no coat or sweater. It's so warm this winter, we'll soon have
palm trees, the Saudi insignia, on the Potomac. A recent Washington Post
story warned that global warming was progressing so fast that within
decades, humans "may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend." Sounds
like a plot for a thriller with Mr. Cheney as an enviro-villain,
especially if you throw in that the Bush administration has been trying to
gag the top NASA climate scientist from issuing Cassandra bleats about
global warming.

Conservatives were so gobsmacked by W.'s promise to have the government
drum up nonpetroleum energy options — Robert Novak huffed that it not only
violated G.O.P. free-market philosophy, but it also had "a lengthy
pedigree of failure" — that the vice president had to swiftly lumber onto
conservative radio shows to praise drilling and gas guzzling.

Asked by Rush Limbaugh if drilling in Alaska was now out, Mr. Cheney said:
"No, it's not off the table by any means. We'll keep pushing it because we
think it makes eminent good sense."

Asked by Laura Ingraham if he agreed with Tom Friedman that the
administration should impart pain with a gas tax, Mr. Cheney demurred,
"Well, I don't agree with that." He said that he and W. are "big
believers" in the market and letting the market work, and that people
"make decisions for themselves in terms of what kind of vehicle they want
to drive, and how often they want to fill up the tank, and from the
perspective of individual American citizens, this notion that we have to
'impose pain,' some kind of government mandate, I think we would resist."

W.'s energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, clarified that the president's words
shouldn't be taken literally. He said the aim of replacing 75 percent of
Middle East oil imports with alternative fuels was "purely an example" of
an action that could be taken.

Back in the Ford White House, when Vice President Nelson Rockefeller
pushed a plan to have the government help develop alternative energy
sources and reduce our dependence on oil and Saudi Arabia, Dick Cheney
helped scuttle it.

If he hadn't, we would no longer be oil addicts. And Dick Cheney wouldn't
have to go to the trouble of scuttling a new plan to have the government
help develop alternative sources of energy and reduce our dependence on
oil and Saudi Arabia.


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean at sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060206/cb29c98c/attachment-0001.htm